1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting plotter, and more particularly, to a cut target medium driving type cutting plotter in which a sheet type of cut target medium moves in a first direction, and in which a cutting means moves in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction at the same time to cut the sheet type medium in a desired shape.
2. Description of the Related Art
As such kinds of cutting plotters for cutting a sheet type medium in a predetermined shape, there has been known a cutting plotter of a cut target medium driving type which has a carriage to move a sheet type medium in a first direction (an X-axis direction) by forwardly and backwardly rotating a driving roller, with both end portions of the sheet type medium interposed between a driving roller and a driven roller (a pinch roller) and to be movable in a second direction (a Y-axis direction) perpendicular to the first direction, and a cutting pen brought into press contact or separated from the sheet type medium provided to the carriage, and which cuts the sheet type medium in a desired shape by moving the cutting pen in a two-dimensional direction with respect to the sheet type medium and by selectively coming into press contact with or separating the cutting pen from the sheet type medium. Further, there has also been known a so-called flat-bed-type cutting plotter which includes a flat plate type table on which a sheet type medium is placed, a Y bar to be movable with respect to the placing table in a first direction, a carriage to be movable in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction by sliding on the Y bar, and a cutting pen mounted to the carriage to come into press contact with or to be separated from the sheet type medium on the placing table, and which cuts the sheet type medium in a desired shape by controlling the movements of the Y bar and the carriage and by selectively bring the cutting pen into press contact with the sheet type medium and by separating the cutting pen from the sheet type medium (for example, see JP-A-2002-346982).
This cutting plotter is used for a sheet type medium printed with (recorded with) a figure, a design, etc., in advance, and for manufacturing the box, the container, etc., by cutting the sheet type medium in development forms of the box, the container, etc., or for manufacturing the paper pattern of clothing, etc., the greeting card, such as the New Year's card, the decorative stencil or master pattern, and the paper products, such as the paper craft, etc.
When a paper sheet is cut by means of the cut target medium driving type cutting plotter, for example, to manufacture a development figure of a box, a container, etc., a paper pattern of clothing, etc., a greeting card, such as a New Year's card, a decorative stencil or a master pattern, and paper products, such as paper crafts, the following troubles can occurs.
That is, in the case of cutting a paper sheet interposed between the driving roller and the pinch roller in a desired shape (hereinafter, referred to as a ‘product’), the driving force of the driving roller and the pinch roller are not transmitted to the product. As a result, there occur troubles that the paper sheet material causes a jam phenomenon during the cutting operation, and that the product falls off the paper sheet material and is rolled into between the sheet material and the cutting means to be damaged.
In order to prevent these troubles, in the conventional cutting plotter, a part of cut data is formed of a residual portion, or a portion that is not completely cut is provided by controlling the pressing force of the cutting pen during the cutting operation (a so-called, a half cut). Thereby, the product dose not completely fall off from the paper sheet, and the product portion is cut from an unnecessary portion of the paper sheet material by means of the hands of an operator after the cutting operation.
According to a method of reading a register mark of the cutting plotter, first, a user confirms the position of a pen block in which a sensor for reading a reference figure is provided with the naked eye. Then, the user moves the pen block through a manual operation to position it around (or an immediately upper portion of) a first register mark, serving as a reference. In this state, the cutting plotter moves the pen block in the two-dimensional direction with respect to a sheet type medium and monitors the output of the reference figure reading sensor to detect a figure of one side coordinate axis which forms the register mark. Then, the cutting plotter detects the other side coordinate axis orthogonal to the one side coordinate axis to calculate a positional coordinate of the first register mark. Since the positional relationship between the respective register marks is previously maintained as a set value from printing data formed on the sheet type medium, the cutting plotter moves the pen block from the position of the detected first register mark to the vicinity of the position of a second register mark, and then detects the second register mark in the same method as that used for the first register mark. The cutting plotter detects the position of a third register mark (if necessary, a fourth register mark) in the same method, and on the basis of the position coordinates of the respective register marks detected in this manner, a cutting operation is performed (for example, see JP-A-11-170195).
In this type of cutting plotter for cutting, for example, a sheet-type cutting film in a desired shape, the sheet type medium is cut by, on the basis of cut data transmitted from a host apparatus, such as a computer, moving the pen block holding the cutting pen in the two-dimensional direction with respect to the sheet type medium, and by bring the cutting pen supported by a holder of the pen block into press contact with the sheet type medium or by separating the cutting pen from the sheet type medium.
FIG. 21 is a view showing a configuration of the cutting pen used for this type of cutting plotter. In FIG. 21, reference numeral 51 indicates a plunger serving as a container, reference numeral 55 indicates an extractor screwed with the plunger, reference numeral 56 indicates a pivot bearing attached to a leading end portion of the extractor 55, reference numeral 52 indicates a cutter blade, reference numeral 54 indicates a cap portion serving as a leading end member, reference numeral 53 indicates a bearing attached to the cap portion 54 to rotatably support the cutter blade 52.
Conventionally, in this cutting pen, a projection amount of a leading edge of the cutter blade is adjusted by rotating the extractor 55 to advance or retreat it with respect to the plunger 51. Further, the leading edge of the cutter blade 52 is directed toward its moving direction with the relative movement of the cutting pen to the sheet type medium by the cutter blade 52 being rotatably supported by the pivot bearing 56 and the bearing 53 (for example, see JP-A-10-034589 and JP-A-11-268000).
In the case of cutting off the product from the paper sheet by means of the hands of the operator, particularly in the case of cutting the product in a strip shape, it is necessary to pay a prudent attention when a residual portion is cut off. Thus, the cutting work is complicated. In the case of being unaccustomed to this work, there occurs a trouble that the quality of the product largely deteriorates. In particular, in the case of using a thin weak paper medium as the sheet type medium, such a trouble becomes more serious.
Further, in the case of cutting the paper medium, the leading edge of the blade of the cutting pen, serving as the cutting means, must pass through the paper medium, so that high pressing force (writing pressure) is required. When the thin, weak paper sheet material is cut, in the case of cutting a middle portion between both end portions of the paper sheet material interposed between the driving roller and the pinch roller, a trouble occurs that the sheet material is damaged, which makes it impossible to cut the sheet material. Furthermore, in the case of cutting the paper medium, paper dust is generated from the cut portion, and the paper dust is deposited on the leading edge of the blade to decrease the cutting force. For this reason, troubles, such as the deterioration of cutting quality and a decrease in durability of the cutter blade, occurs.
When the sheet type medium on which figures, etc., are printed in advance is cut by means of the cutting plotter to assemble a box, the printed part of the figure should be exposed on a predetermined position. Therefore, it is necessary to cut the sheet type medium with coordinate axes in an XY plane of the cutting plotter equal to coordinate axes of the record of the sheet type medium. For this reason, in the conventional art, when recording is performed on the sheet type medium, reference figures (a so-called register mark) indicating coordinate axes thereof are formed, and a sensor for reading the reference figure is provided to the pen block of the cutting plotter. Then, the pen block is moved before the cutting operation to cause the reference figure to be read by the sensor to detect the coordinate axes thereof. Subsequently, the cutting operation is performed after correcting cutting data on the basis of the detected coordinate axes. In this way, a positioning operation of the sheet type medium is easily performed, and the coordinate axes of the sheet type medium exactly correspond to the coordinate axes of the cutting plotter.
Further, in general, the operation is performed in the following sequence. The figure, design, etc., formed on the surface of the sheet type medium are drawn in advance with graphic software. Profile data, etc., which should cut the sheet type medium is generated by application software generating cut data of the cutting plotter, apart from, but in conformity with, image data generated by the graphic software. On the basis of the image (printing) data generated by the graphic software, recording is performed on the surface of the sheet type medium by a recording device, such as a printer. Then, the sheet type medium to which the record has been completely performed is set to the cutting plotter and is then cut.
In the image data generating work, cut data generating work, printing, cutting, etc., which are performed in this sequence, a format of the image data for recording and printing should be different from that of the cut data for cutting. For these works, knowledge is required to some extent, so that these works cause a person unaccustomed to the operation of the cutting plotter to feel very complicated, and generate a trouble in that the manufacture of the box and container, or the manufacture of the paper pattern of the clothing, etc., the decorative stencil or master pattern, the greeting card, such as the New Year's card, the paper products, such as the paper craft, etc., cannot be easily carried out.
In the conventional cutting plotter, as mentioned above, it is essentially necessary for the operator to manually perform the movement and positional selection of the pen block with respect to the first register mark, acting as a reference, on detecting the position of the register mark, which is a reference figure, while looking at the work in person. This is because a cutting start point (or a starting point serving as reference) is not fixed, particularly, in the abovementioned flat bed type cutting plotter, and thus the sheet type medium to be cut is placed at an arbitrary position on the table. Therefore, such a work is for setting the start point when the cutting operation is performed and for detecting the position of the first register mark formed on the sheet type medium. However, it is very difficult to automatically detect the position of the first register mark, and a little knowledge is needed to perform the works. Thus, it is very complicated for the person unaccustomed to the operation of the cutting plotter to perform the works. Accordingly, there is a trouble that everybody cannot easily cut the-sheet type medium by means of the cutting plotter.
In the case of cutting the sheet type medium by means of the cutting plotter, various kinds of operational conditions are prepared for high-quality cutting. For instance, a drawing speed (namely, the movement speed of the cutting pen), acceleration (the movement acceleration of the cutting pen), writing pressure (the pressure of the cutting pen with respect to the sheet type medium), offset compensation amount (the offset amount of the cutting initial point), and a type of pen (the projection amount or shape of the leading edge of the blade of the cutting pen) are prepared as the operational conditions. Among them, the drawing speed and the acceleration are connected with the precision of the cut figure to be prepared. It is preferable that these values be set to be small in the case of preparing a slim cut figure, and that these values be set to be great in the case of intending to shorten a whole time for the cutting operation. Further, the writing pressure is connected with the thickness or stiffness of the sheet type medium to be cut. Preferably, the writing pressure is set to be great with respect to a thick or rigid medium. It is possible to perform good-quality cutting by setting proper writing pressure according to the thickness or stiffness of the sheet type medium to be cut. In addition, the offset compensation amount and the pen type (the projection amount of the leading edge of the blade of the cutting pen) are connected with the thickness or stiffness of the cutting film to be cut. In this manner, these operational conditions are prepared together with many setting values corresponding to various kinds of sheet type medium to be cut inclusive of the various kinds of cutting films. Conventionally, for these cutting conditions, it is repeated that the operator presets the setting values determined to be proper before the cutting operation, cuts the sheet type medium in a predetermined pattern within an unnecessary region before the cutting operation, that is to say, performs test cutting, and checks the results to set the various conditions again. After the setting values at which optimal results are obtained are determined, the cutting operation is performed.
Therefore, in order to rapidly find the optimal operational conditions, it is required to depend on the experience of the operator or to repeatedly perform the test cutting operation. For this reason, the setting of these various operational conditions is very complicated to the person unaccustomed to this operation. Further, in the case of changing the target to be cut into another kind of sheet material, this setting work of the operational conditions is performed again, which is a complicated work.
When the sheet type medium is cut by the cutting plotter using the cutting pen, and when the sheet type medium to be cut is a so-called cutting film configured in such a manner that an adhesive sheet is stacked on a template paper through an adhesive, etc., and that a target to be cut is only the adhesive sheet portion. Hence, the operator needs to adjust the projection amount of the leading edge of the cutter blade of the cutting pen, according to the thickness of the adhesive sheet. The adjustment of the projection amount of the leading edge of the cutter blade is performed in such a manner that the cutter blade 52 is advanced or retreated by rotating the extractor 55, and that the projection amount of its end, i.e., the projection amount of the edge of the cutter blade 52 with respect to a lower end of the cap portion 54 coming into contact with the surface of the adhesive sheet when the cutting pen 5 is brought into press contact with the sheet type medium is kept either to be equal to the thickness of the adhesive sheet of the sheet type medium or not to completely pass through the template paper. In fact, since the projection amount of the edge of the cutter blade is slight, the operator cuts the sheet type medium in a predetermined pattern within its unnecessary region before the cutting operation in the prior art, that is, performs test cutting, and checks the cut results to readjust the projection amount. In this manner, the operator repeats these processes to set the optimal projection amount, and then performs the cutting operation.
Thus, in order to rapidly find the optical projection amount, it is required to depend on the experience of the operator or to repeatedly perform the test cutting. For this reason, the person unaccustomed to this operation suffers from a very complicated adjustment of the project amount. Further, in the case of changing the target to be cut into another material, such as a paper sheet material, it is necessary to perform the adjustment of the projection amount again. In addition, the adjustment work should be performed whenever the medium is changed, which is a complicated work.